The Boy Who Failed Show and Tell

by Jordan Sonnenblick

  “It just doesn’t make sense for you to come along right now. And you know I wouldn’t have gone now if not for my sisters bugging me about it. Plus, there’s the bar mitzvah. Otherwise, I would have just waited for the funeral.”

  My mother’s whole face got tight, and I was scared of what she might say. I never found out, because that was when the phone rang. My dad picked it up, listened for a minute, and hung up. Then he turned to my mom and said, “Well, it looks like I won’t be missing the funeral after all.”

  “Oh, Harv,” my mother said.

  The next morning, after my dad left for the airport, I went outside and stood on our front lawn. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I thought, How can it be sunny if my grandmother is dead? It shouldn’t be sunny—there should be thunder and lightning! The whole world should be dark. But the sun just kept beating down. I took out my aluminum baseball bat and a tennis ball from the garage, and made a deal with God: “If I just hit this ball, Nana isn’t really dead.”

  Unfortunately for my grandmother, I am a terrible hitter. I took a tremendous swing but missed the ball completely. Desperately, I picked up the ball from the grass and looked upward at the heavens. “Okay,” I said to God. “Two out of three?”

  So yeah, I know how this cancer thing works. My grandmother lasted six months, so I count on my fingers: April, May, June, July, August, September.

  My father isn’t even going to be around for the World Series.

  My parents have no idea I know this secret, so when I start getting in trouble in Miss Tuff’s class, they don’t understand. Everything just kind of falls apart at once. I fall asleep in class, because I haven’t been sleeping at night. I tap on my desk even more than usual. I miss steps in class assignments and forget about homework. Worst of all, I start getting into arguments with other kids—not just bullies like Albert, but nice kids. Kids who were starting to feel like new friends.

  I snap at everybody. I make fun of people when they get answers wrong in class, or just whenever I think of something mean and funny to say. I can hear the words come out of my mouth, and I feel ashamed, but I can’t stop being mean. It’s almost like there are two Jordans: the one who says these things, and the one who feels bad about the meanness but can’t make it stop. And then, one day, I completely lose my mind. I have been called up to the blackboard to work out a math problem on the board, but the problem is from last night’s homework, which I haven’t even looked at. I don’t know what I am doing, so of course after days of my making fun of everyone who makes a mistake, some kid points it out with a smart comment.

  Something breaks open inside me, and I step back a few feet and then hurl an eraser at the board. It makes a tremendous THWAP! sound and sends chalk dust billowing out everywhere. Everybody in the room is staring at me like I am a zoo animal. I run back to my seat and crawl under the desk to hide.

  I hear the clacking of Miss Tuff’s wooden-heeled sandals on the floor and know she is headed my way. I am in a panic, because Mrs. Fisher slapped me in the face just for missing the Pledge. What is this teacher going to do to me when I have just thrown a fit at the board? I hug my knees, try to slow my breathing, and wait. Miss Tuff kneels down so we are face-to-face. “Oh, honey, I can see that something is really bothering you today. Would you like to come outside with me and talk about what it is?”

  Out in the hall, Miss Tuff says, “What is going on with you, Jordan? You can tell me.”

  I can’t look at her. “I am trying so hard to be good, but I can’t be good! I can’t think. I can’t listen. How am I supposed to just sit here and do nothing when my dad has …” I can’t even make myself say the word, but Miss Tuff waits silently until I give it a shot. “C … c … cancer!”

  I start to cry so hard that I can’t catch my breath. Miss Tuff says, “Oh, I am so sorry! Thank you for being brave enough to tell me. I would hug you, but I know you don’t like being touched.”

  I still can’t look at Miss Tuff, but I step forward, throw my arms around her waist, and bury my face in the front of her shirt. When she puts her arms around me, for the first time since September, I feel safe.

  My mother has decided to cheer me up by taking me to the pet shop and buying me a new snake. I don’t want another snake. Another snake just means another thing that can die. I have already lost twenty baby snakes and my school this year.

  My mom insists, though. “Just come with me to look,” she says. “You don’t have to buy a snake, but you never know—maybe you’ll find one you like.”

  I think this sounds like a terrible idea, but when my mom throws in a free trip to the comic book store, I stop fighting it. I mean, I really need the next issue of Marvel Team-Up, because Spider-Man is going to join forces with the Black Widow—which sounds awesome. Also there’s a new Uncanny X-Men coming out that looks pretty intriguing. It seems silly to pass up the chance to keep my collection up to date just because I am terrified, depressed, and still in mourning for my slaughtered, innocent garter snakes.

  The pet store guy says they have just gotten in a new shipment of garter snakes, and that they seem particularly tame and friendly.

  “Feel free to just reach in and pick up whichever one you want to hold,” he says.

  A very long, unusually fat snake in the back corner of the cage, away from the ten or so others, catches my eye. I am not going to buy this guy, but just holding him couldn’t hurt, right?

  Except that it does hurt, because the snake strikes without warning and bites my right pointer finger. It’s not like I haven’t been bitten before, but this snake must have particularly big fangs, because the two punctures on my finger sting and bleed.

  Particularly tame? Friendly? I’m thinking the pet store dude isn’t too sharp when it comes to reptile psychology. He has a good supply of Band-Aids, antiseptic, and Bacitracin ointment, though.

  When I am patched up, I wander back over to the cage. Now I notice a smallish garter snake that has the shiniest, most colorful skin I have ever seen. The black parts of its body are absolutely dark, while the three yellow stripes are almost glow-in-the-dark color. And where the snake’s top scales meet its underside, there are striking flecks of red. I am kind of tentative when I reach down this time, but the shiny little guy slithers right over and wraps itself around my wrist.

  Like Hecky does!

  “Wow, that is a really good-looking snake!” my mother says. “You know, Jord, Hectoria might like having some company.” Mom is a great actor, because I happen to know she thinks snakes are revolting. It’s nice of her to try, though. And Hecky has been looking a bit mopey lately.

  “Whatever,” I mumble.

  And now I am the owner of two garter snakes.

  I am a bit afraid Hecky and this new guy will attack each other, but they don’t. I carefully introduce them by draping Hecky over my right hand and the new snake over my left, and slowly bringing the two hands together. They both raise their heads up, and I think, Oh no! They’re going to strike! They don’t strike, though. Instead, Hecky inches forward until her head is just in front of the new snake’s, and starts flicking her tongue out again and again. The new snake does the same thing, and I’m pretty sure their tongues actually touch at least once.

  Snakes kissing! I am not sure whether I should cheer or barf.

  I put the snakes in opposite corners of the cage, just in case. Then I sit down to watch for a while, even though I am dying to read my new comics. Within minutes, Hecky and the new snake have tumbled themselves all over each other. It would be hard to tell which coil belonged to which snake if the new guy weren’t so much more vividly colored. Once I am sure nobody is going to eat anybody else, I feel a bit better about this situation, so I leave the snakes alone and head downstairs to the couch to find out how Spidey and the Black Widow get along.

  A few days later, I invite Peter Friedman over to meet my new pet. He insists that we need to give the snake a name. Lying on our backs on my bedroom floor, each of us holding one snake, we b
rainstorm a million options.

  Peter comes up with the Flash, because he moves faster than Hecky does.

  I counter with Dash, because of his stripes being so distinctive.

  Peter suggests Hector, “because Hecky isn’t using it anymore.” I shoot that down immediately, because this snake just got here. There’s no way I am going to destroy Hecky’s self-esteem by suggesting he is equal with her!

  I say, “What about Ringo?” Peter says no way, because the snake doesn’t have rings, he has stripes.

  This goes on for a while. This guy doesn’t look like any of the names we come up with. He’s not a Blackie or a Stripey (which is way too much like Stripe, anyway) or a Luke Skywalker—which is Peter’s extremely dumb suggestion, not mine. Finally, when I am about ready to just beg my mom to drive us back to the mall and return him, I say, “Why don’t we name him J.P. Snake?”

  “J.P. Snake?” Peter says, turning to squint at me like I have just gone insane. “Why J.P. Snake? Should Snake even be in a snake’s name? It’s not like my name is Peter Friedman Person. And what’s the J.P. part for, anyway?”

  “That’s the genius part: It has two meanings. It could stand for John Paul, like the pope. Or it could be for Jordan Peter. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a snake named after us?”

  Well, now that this name is in honor of him, Peter loves it. I switch snakes with Peter, who has been holding the new snake the whole time, and hold it so it is looking down at me.

  “Welcome to my family,” I say to it. “I now pronounce you J.P. Snake.”

  J.P. Snake celebrates by pooping on my arm a little bit.

  Aside from his hygiene issues, J.P. might be good luck, because at the end of the week, my father comes home with amazing news: He doesn’t have cancer! The test results have come back from the lab, and it turns out that the weird lump on my dad’s arm isn’t a deadly weird lump—it’s just a regular weird lump. He announces this in the middle of dinner, which is kind of strange, because Lissa and I aren’t even supposed to know about the whole cancer thing, and I don’t think my parents have discovered the heating-duct listening trick. But the announcement isn’t as strange as my mom’s reaction. She starts crying, right there at the table!

  I don’t get it. Why would she cry because her husband doesn’t have cancer? This reminds me of the whole fiasco at Hanukkah, when my mom told us not to get her anything and then threw a fit when we listened. If all wives are this confusing, I am never getting married.

  Later that night, when I am in bed and the lights are out, I realize I am kind of mad at my father. I mean, I am glad he isn’t dying. But now I have to go to school and tell Miss Tuff the whole thing was a mistake, and that I was terribly behaved all week for nothing. Then I have to go back to being good and nice all day again. Which isn’t as easy as it sounds.

  Just before I fall asleep I figure something out. I guess maybe if I can be angry at my dad for not being sick, it wasn’t that weird for my mom to cry when she heard the news.

  Baseball! I love everything about it. I love the yearly ritual of oiling up my glove for the season with my dad. I love meeting my teammates. I love the smell of the fresh-cut grass on the field. I love warming up in the outfield by catching fly balls. I love base-running drills. I love hitting drills. I love trying out for my favorite positions: pitcher and second base.

  The best thing about baseball is that every season starts with fresh, new hope.

  But the hope never lasts long. I always squirt too much oil on my glove, and then it has weird dark stains that never fade. My teammates always start out liking me, but then they see me in action. It’s terrible! I am deathly allergic to grass, so as soon as we hit the field, my eyes water nonstop and I can’t breathe. I am so spectacularly awful at catching fly balls that last year, a kid on my team said they should just send my glove out to right field and leave me in the dugout, because the glove might have a better chance of making a play without me around. I am not the fastest base runner in the world and I rarely hit the ball. The saddest part of all of this is that I am great at pitching and playing second base in practice. But when a game comes around, I choke.

  Basically, my season has two parts: the Glorious First Two Weeks of Practice, followed by the Horrible Three Months of Sitting on the Bench. The rules of Snug Harbor Little League say that every player has to play at least three innings of each game. So really, I spend only half of each game on the bench. But wow, it feels like a lot more.

  I have a couple of useful skills, though. I am excellent at cheering for my team super loudly, and at heckling the other team from the dugout until an umpire yells at me to stop. I am good at calming down my teammates when they have messed up on the field. And I am truly gifted when it comes to the fine art of getting hit by the pitch.

  And yes, it is an art.

  First, you have to crowd the plate, which means standing as close as possible to the strike zone and then leaning over so your upper body is practically in the zone. Second, you have to stick out your front elbow as far as it can reach. Third—and most critical—you must never flinch. It sounds simple to just stand there and take the hit, but it is not. Your body wants to get out of the way, because baseballs are HARD. Until you have taken one in the ribs, or suffered a direct hit to the funny bone, you can’t really appreciate just how hard they are.

  And a direct hit to the helmet? That will leave you shaky for days—trust me.

  But it’s all worth it when you get on first base. Then you can taunt and distract the pitcher by taking a lead and dancing just in the corner of his field of vision. It’s great, because he is probably already shaken up from hitting you. If you get him thinking you might take off and steal second base, he’ll get even more worried. Sometimes this means he will walk or hit the next batter. Sometimes it means he will fall behind in the count and have to throw a ball straight down the middle, where the batter can smack it over the infielders’ heads and into the outfield. And sometimes, he’ll get so distracted that he misses the catcher completely and you can steal second without even having to slide.

  I’m not fast, but I’m smart, which means stealing bases is the second-best part of my game. As long as I don’t get knocked out while performing the best part of my game, I have a great shot at getting to second, and maybe even to third. Then if there’s a big hit, I can score a run for my team.

  Not bad for a kid who can barely see the ball.

  My father comes to every single game. He never criticizes my playing, and if I get on base and steal second, he pats me on the shoulder after the game and says, “Great base running, son!” I would love to make a heroic, game-winning play so he could get to say, “Great diving catch, bud!” or “Great hitting, pal!” But I’ll take what I can get.

  This year, my mom asked specially for me to be put on a team with Peter Friedman. This is great for the parents and their carpooling needs, and I admit I love having Peter around. It is not great for my playing, though. Pete is a year older than me, so I am the youngest kid on the opening-day roster for our team, Lockwood Plumbing. I am short for my own age, but when you put me on a field with a bunch of fifth graders, it looks like somebody on the team is a ventriloquist and I am his dummy.

  Leaving me out of the picture for a minute, I have to say our team has some great players. We have two unbelievable pitchers, Nick and Tommy. Tommy never walks anybody, which my dad says is nearly 100 percent of how you win in Little League. He also has a weird, floaty, curveball-type pitch that makes kids take huge swings and miss the ball completely. Sometimes, they even fall down! But the real star is Nick. He never walks anybody, either—plus, he throws the ball about a million miles an hour. I have batted against him in practice, and it is terrifying. When my bad eyesight combines with his pitch speed, I might as well just wear a blindfold and attempt to hit the ball using only my sense of smell.

  But since he’s on my team, at least I don’t have to face his deadly fireballs in a real game.

  We also have
maybe five really good hitters and a big, mean catcher named Garrett, who terrifies opposing players when he blocks home plate. Then there are guys like Peter, who are decent, but sometimes get benched. The last three kids, the ones who live on the bench, are me, a huge kid named Garth who is bigger than our coach but not very coordinated, and a boy named Scott who wears big metal braces around his lower legs.

  Garth, Scott, and I spend a lot of time together since we are always sitting out. The good news is that those guys are nice. That makes me feel extra bad when Scott comes up to bat and his dad yells at him. It’s awful! Here’s a kid who can barely walk, and his own father screams at him, “Hit the ball! What’s wrong with you? Don’t you even want to win?”

  I hope one day Scott hits a line drive straight into the stands and nails his dad right on the head.

  The problem is even worse when Scott is in the outfield. If Scott makes an error, his father screams, “What are you, afraid of the ball?” This is the worst thing anybody can say to a kid. Being slow, being clumsy, even making a stupid mental mistake—all of these things aren’t unforgivably embarrassing. But being Afraid of the Ball is different. If you are Afraid of the Ball, everyone thinks less of you. They think you are a wimp. They think you are not a man.

  I make a lot of errors in the field, too, and I have always been terrified that somebody might say I am Afraid of the Ball. I think they probably would, too, except for my excellent track record of getting hit by the pitch. Anybody who Takes One for the Team on a regular basis can’t be Afraid of the Ball. Taking One for the Team is the exact opposite of being Afraid of the Ball. In fact, when a kid gets hit by the pitch and then jogs down to first base, our coach, Mr. Dave, always slaps him on the shoulder and says, “Way to take it like a man!”

  Sure, it hurts getting smashed in the kidney by a fastball. But I would rather lose a kidney than my reputation.